Page 58 of Jackrabbit

That hadn’t sounded like a confession, like something he was expecting a reaction for. Just a fact buried in—what?

“So…I freaked you out?” Colt asked, trying veryveryhard not to think about the implications of Beau being gay because that meant there was achance, right, like—

Beau put his hands on his hips and nodded, a bead of sweat trickling down his neck and into his shirt collar. “You could say that.”

God, Beau was probably deeply uncomfortable right now. Because Colthadnoticed that Beau didn’t have anyone. No friends, no visitors, no one sending texts for fun or to say hi. Colt would bet cash money that Beau hadn’t had a close friend since Sutton Tate had gotten himself killed and nearly done the same to Beau.

Colt hummed. “I mean, I literally tried to beat you up and then cried on your lap like a child, and me drooling on your sheets is what got you?”

The sound that came out of Beau wasn't a laugh, really, but it was laugh-adjacent, a sort of startled bark that made Colt's pulse skyrocket. He'd never heard Beaulaugh.A snort, a sort of reluctant chuckle—those were the best he'd gotten. Like the greedy fuck he was, Colt wanted to hear a real one. A deep, can't-breathe-now-I'm-crying kind of laugh.

Beau shook his head and put his sunglasses back on. “Alright, can you stop being such a shit now? Air's clear. Let's finish this hike.”

“No can do.” Colt fell into step beside Beau as he walked. “Being a brat is hardwired into my DNA. But you like me, so it’s okay. You’ll grumble at me and go all ‘don’t fall and break your fool leg, Colton,’ but inside you’re thinking, ‘that idiot is my friend.’”

A few steps later, and Beau’s footsteps were missing next to his. Beau was standing a couple feet back and staring at Colt with an intensity that felt like a hand on Colt’s chest.

Colt grinned. “Come on, old man. Let’s finish this hike before the sun goes down and the bears come out.”

Beau stared for another beat before clearing his throat and catching up. “The bears don’t come out when the sun goes down, boy, you think they’re nocturnal?”

“Nope.” Colt kicked a stick off the path and took another drink from his backpack. “They’re crepuscular. Especially here, where it’s hotter than Satan’s ball sack. Come out at dawn and dusk.”

***

That idiot is my friend.

It was true. Colt was Beau’s friend. How could he not be? They hadn’t known each other half a year, and yet Colt had slipped into all the cracks in Beau’s walls and made himself comfortable like it was the most natural thing in the world. Maybe that was the scariest part.

The ease of it all.

Even when Beau brought men home for hookups, having someone in his space got real uncomfortable real fast. They had sex, Beau had them leave, he changed his sheets, and Toast came out of hiding and wouldn't talk to Beau for hours. He’d slept in the same sheets Colt had slept in for multiple nights in a row now, and Toast had slept on the pillow next to him like he was just as happy.

Colt hopped up on another rock, grabbed a tree branch, and swung back onto the ground.

Kinetic. That’s what Colt was, and Beau couldn’t help the way he was drawn to him.

He reminded Beau of Sutton still. Of the good parts now, though, not just the parts that made Beau want to wring his neck. The parts that brought Beau out of his own brain and into the world where there was color and light. He could admit now that that was more than half the reason he'd agreed to train Colt in the first place. That knowing. That familiarity. But it wasn’t why he'dkeptdoing it, and it wasn't why he'd taken half a day to bring Colt on the hike Beau usually took to clear his mind.

The trees thinned as they got higher, and the temperature dropped a few more degrees. Still sweltering, maybe, but at least the breeze wasn't hot. Cool through the pines, the kind of fresh you only felt in the desert summer after a good rain.

“Holy shit,” Colt breathed as they broke through the tree line.

Beau stepped up next to him and took in the view, the natural sandstone bowl that filled to the brim if the monsoons were good to them like they had been this year. The falls were even going, a tiered set of rocks that guided water from the top to the next rock, then the next, and the next until it spilled off the edge of the biggest, lowest boulder into the pool below. The water was filtered by the falls, leaving it clear all the way to the sandy bottom where the pool was deepest.

A shoe hit the ground at his feet, followed immediately by another, then socks. Then the shirt came off—sweat-damp cotton sliding over Colt's head, revealing the back Beau had memorized through training. Shoulders that had been bony when they’d met, now defined from months of work. The twin dimples at his lower back just visible above the waistband. Freckles scattered across his shoulders like paint spatter.

“What are you doing?” Beau asked as his eyes traveled from Colt's neck to those loud shorts.

“Giving you a strip tease,” Colt deadpanned as he stepped up to the edge of the pool. He didn't look back at Beau, which was good because it meant he couldn't see what Beau's face was doing. “What's it look like? I'm gonna swim.”

“Looks like you're about to get real cold real fast,” Beau said as he slipped off his own shoes and socks. “Mountain runoff isn't gonna be warm like your Meemaw's backyard pool.”

Colt laughed over his shoulder. “Meemaw. Are you serious right now?”

He didn't wait for an answer. Just turned around and backed up a few steps. Then he ran, hit the edge of the shore, and flung himself into the water with zero hesitation and a whoop that was pure joy. It echoed off the rocks and through the trees and into Beau’s toes.

A second later, Colt broke the surface. “Shit, that's fucking cold.”